Before Wu Chong and the others could react, they saw Zhu Lin carrying two buckets of mixed grain pellets and jumping onto the giant eagle's back. The boy sat down on the eagle's back and gestured for Xingxing to come up with him.
Xingxing's eyes lit up suddenly. "Wow, can I come along too? Yingying, can you carry such a heavy load?"
The little girl asked the giant eagle if it could carry her weight, but her little hand had already quickly reached into the boy's hand, and then, with the boy's help, she quickly jumped onto the eagle's back.
The giant eagle didn't even bother with her. Every time they met, this little human cub would try to covet her and ask her to fly with it. The eagle had long seen through her trick. Humph.
"Wow, I'm so envious!" Zhang Xiantao's eyes gleamed with envy as she chased after the giant eagle for a while, shouting as she ran, "Take me with you! Take me with you!"
The giant eagle was too fast. With a flap of its giant wings, its figure disappeared into the clouds in a few breaths, leaving no trace in the sky. Looking at the cloudless blue sky, everyone was in a daze, as if the arrival of the giant eagle was just an illusion.
Not long after the giant eagle left, everyone else also left, except for Zhang Xiantao, who remained staring blankly at the sky, as if trying to make a hole in it. In the end, Zhao Mingyue pulled her back.
A quarter of an hour later, the giant eagle appeared in the sky above the Xiyuguan city gate. Just as Xingxing was about to peek out to see what was happening below, they suddenly heard the sound of a sharp arrow piercing the sky. Zhu Lin quickly pulled the little girl back and swiftly reached out with his other hand to firmly grasp the arrow.
At this moment, they were still in mid-air, a great distance from the Xiyuguan city gate, which was outside their range. However, the enemy's arrows were able to hit them accurately. If the giant eagle had reacted a little slower, or if Zhu Lin had moved a little slower, they might have been hit.
One can imagine how strong the archer's arms must be and how accurate his archery must be. Wasn't he starving to death because he was running out of food? How could he still have the strength to pull such a heavy bow?
Little did Zhu Lin know that this was an arrow shot with all the strength of the border commander.
Upon spotting a giant eagle in the sky, the soldiers of the Great Jin Dynasty immediately assumed it was a eagle trained by the people of the Great Yin Kingdom, who were planning another sneak attack.
The giant eagle, which was half the height of a person, had talons that could pierce a person's chest or tear through a person's scalp in one fell swoop. Its attack power was truly terrifying. Now, seeing the giant eagle that looked like a small mountain, the soldiers were terrified.
At this time, Xiyu Pass had just been breached, and Wanyan Xiong's men rushed up the city wall. The soldiers of the Great Jin were fighting desperately, but they had not eaten enough for several days, and since yesterday they could only drink water to fill their stomachs. The soldiers had already lost half of their fighting strength, suffered several defeats, and finally had no food to eat. Their morale plummeted to rock bottom.
The army at Xiyuguan was already at its last gasp; even if they fought to the death, they would only be throwing their lives away.
The general noticed the giant eagle in the sky and felt a deep sense of sorrow and despair. He watched as his already demoralized soldiers trembled even more in fear of the eagle, unable to resist and standing there dumbly as the soldiers of the Great Silver Kingdom slaughtered them. In a fit of rage, he rushed back to his tent, took out his six-stone bow, and shot it with all his might.
They thought they would definitely hit the giant eagle, but the eagle reacted incredibly quickly, dodging the arrow with a slight sidestep. It seemed that the person on the eagle's back had caught the arrow.
"General." The lieutenant helped up the commander, who had coughed up blood from the exertion.
"Xiyu Pass has fallen. I have failed His Majesty and the people of the Great Jin." This great general, who had never uttered a sound of pain even after being slashed more than a dozen times by the enemy and whose arm was almost chopped off by the Great Silver Man, now had a tear fall from his tiger-like eyes.
"General, this is not your fault, it is..." It is Heaven's will that makes the Great Jin Dynasty fail. The flood almost wiped out the people of an entire city, directly preventing messages from being sent out of Xiyu Pass and preventing the delivery of grain. It is all the will of Heaven.
The lieutenant, having only spoken halfway, dared not continue. Instead, he supported the general and, under the cover of a dozen elite soldiers, prepared to escape.
"I can't leave. I, Luo Ling, will die at Xiyu Pass. I will never retreat a single step. I will fight the people of the Great Silver Kingdom to the death." Luo Ling pushed away his deputy general, determined not to leave.
The subordinates had no choice but to grit their teeth and say, "Since the general refuses to leave, we will stay with him and defend Xiyu Pass to the death." They stayed with the determination to die.
At this moment, the soldiers heard the giant eagle descend, and the desperate soldiers raised their swords, ready to perish together with the giant eagle.
The giant eagle, sensing the intense killing intent, thought: "?"
Do these humans want to fight it to the death? Should it just swat them to death with one claw?
Zhu Lin jumped off the eagle's back with Xingxing on his back, and put the two large buckets of mixed grain pellets on the ground as well. Then he said in a low voice, "Go play by yourself. I'll call you over if I need you."
With a flap of its wings, the giant eagle's figure quickly became a tiny dot in the sky, as if it had soared directly into the heavens.
A group of soldiers charged forward with their swords drawn, ready to strike. Zhu Lin drew his sword and leaped into the air with Xingxing in tow. As he landed, he unleashed a sword aura that sent the soldiers flying back several feet.
"Stop! Stop fighting! They're our own people." Zhu Lin's voice wasn't loud, but every word he uttered was very clear to the soldiers.
"One of our own?" Luo Ling snorted coldly, not believing it at all.
After Xingxing regained her footing, she immediately took out the jade pendant with the dragon-shaped vine design from her bosom, held it up for them to see, and said, "I am a princess of the Great Jin Dynasty. This is my father's dragon vine jade pendant. All soldiers, listen to my command."
Luo Ling naturally recognized the jade pendant that the Empress wore close to her body. He then looked at Xingxing's delicate and beautiful face, which bore a seven-tenths resemblance to the Empress. Her manner of speaking and tone were also somewhat similar to the Empress's.
"Luo Ling greets Your Highness the Princess." Luo Ling took the lead in kneeling, and the other soldiers, without suspicion, followed suit.
"Generals, please rise quickly. Without further ado, I have come to deliver provisions to you. However, the army of the Great Silver Kingdom has already breached Xiyu Pass. Let's find a way to repel them first." Xingxing stepped forward to help Luo Ling up and began to make arrangements.
"The provisions have arrived?" Luo Ling was overjoyed.
Xingxing's eyes darted around, a little guilty, and she nodded vaguely in response, "It's here. Don't worry about the supplies yet, let's think about how to defeat the Silver Man."
"Princess, the soldiers have not eaten for two days and have only been surviving on water. Water is scarce in the Northwest, and I'm afraid the soldiers are powerless to resist." Luo Ling slumped her shoulders in despair.
Zhu Lin drew his sword and killed several soldiers from the Great Silver Kingdom who rushed up the city wall. Standing on the city wall, he looked out and immediately spotted Wanyan Xiong riding a horse in the distance, laughing arrogantly and triumphantly.
Beside him stood Wanyan Muku, the greatest warrior of the Great Silver Kingdom. The two men wore smug expressions, having won a great victory, and shouted something like, "Kill them! A sheep will be rewarded for each head. If you cut off Luo Ling's head, you will be rewarded with ten thousand taels of silver and promoted!"
"You all wait here. Once I return with Wanyan Xiong's head, we can turn the tide of this battle." Zhu Lin had no intention of wielding his sword against those lowly soldiers. He believed in capturing the leader first, and with his skills, taking down Wanyan Xiong would be more than enough.
He could even fly straight over, using his robes as cover, to make the enemy soldiers' arrows useless against him, and after taking Wanyan Xiong's head, he could return freely. However, such a feat was too incredible and might frighten everyone.
As an ordinary person, he should have kept a low profile and shouldn't have recklessly flaunted his skills by relying on his mustard seed space and various magical artifacts unique to the cultivation world.
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